


Pyre

by celestial_txt



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, Double Penetration, F/M, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26028463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestial_txt/pseuds/celestial_txt
Summary: [Spoilers for 5.3 within!]The night before Elidibus is to sacrifice himself, Azem and Emet-Selch show him just how much he is loved.Elidibus looks up at her, tongue wetting his dry lips. “What will you have of me?”“We want you. As much of you as we can have.” Azem touches his chin, her fingers trailing down his neck to rest at his clavicles.“As much as you will let us have.”Elidibus’ voice trembles. “I am… Yes. I am yours.”
Relationships: 14th Member of the Convocation of Fourteen/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Elidibus, Elidibus/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Azem, Elidibus/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	Pyre

Azem sits in the garden, weaving a flower crown while her nimble fingers drop blood onto her lap, pricked by thorns. Emet-Selch watches her work, watches as roses and carnations wend their way into her creation, sprouting from the earth at her knees and getting snapped up by her fingers right as they bloom.

The Convocation settled the matter this morning, and Azem has been quiet since, her jaw working even as she says nothing. If he closes his eyes he can guess at what will come, but his hands are tied. Their choices unfold, their decisions will bear fruit, and they will shoulder the cost of it.

She looks up at him, crown in her hands. “Your touch,” she says, holding it out. From his fingertips spring forth red crystal blossoms that weave their way through her creation, emanating a subtle glow. She turns it over in her hands, for once not a critic. He misses the playfulness lost, in these dark constricting days. She never teases him over his cut corners anymore.

It is the night before, and the world ablaze around them. Flames lick at the sky, a reddish haze staining the stars. The Star is poised on the brink — of either greatness or destruction. The collective breath is held. Even the ground has ceased quaking tonight.

There has never been a need for rituals like this before. Even finding the words for what they are doing is an act of creation. A distant part of him thinks of all the paperwork to do at the bureau once everything is righted again, of all the new patents to file. Primal sacrifice: the act of surrendering a beloved to a power greater than the sum of its parts.

Apocalypse is a new word, heavy to utter, with doom and despair flanking its every syllable. The end of everything. The idea that they are their own undoing.

They have had to be more careful with magick, more cautious. Anxieties and fears taint their intentions, and they have needed to learn how to keep still and breathe deep and _smell the cinders and ash floating through the air without being seized by the terror of watching everything you love turned to dust —_

So they have bound themselves to flesh and bone and sinew that tense when they move, and they sometimes stop and stand still, frozen as they breathe in deep three times, rehearsing the words of what is to come.

_I will not know fear, for the Convocation has found salvation._

_I will not know pain, for the Convocation has found salvation._

_I will not know the end, for the Convocation has found salvation._

A string of words whispered, over and over, slowly rising to become an incantation.

To create prayer: a solemn request for help, a plea to a divinity not yet known. All they know is the heart of what it will be.

In this ever-expanding moment, they have no names. They are their titles. Their hands shaping a future that slips further and further out of their grasp. Hers have been restless, her knuckles straining against her skin, her eyes drifting toward the horizon. She has disagreed the most. He has not. Something has broken itself between them, a damage he cannot fathom.

From deep in their home, the soft tones of piano music trail towards them. Elidibus is home, late as always.

What will they tell of him in the future? How he ate breakfast delicately, already his mind working to compose before he had even buttered a toast. How he saw the bigger picture better than anyone else they knew, but still forgot to come up for air when perusing tomes in the archives. How he would bite his lower lip til it swelled, full and red, while reading, worrying the most beautiful part of him with his sharp teeth.

Emet-Selch goes first, and he stops on the threshold of the library for a split second, just taking in an image he knows not if he will ever see like this again. Elidibus with his straight back, proper posture, arms at the exact degree, the sinews in his long, slender fingers working across the keys.

When he touches Elidibus’ cool cheek, the other man leans into it, his fingers skidding across the keys, not pressing down hard enough. The song fades out to nothing.

“Let us take care of you tonight,” Emet-Selch says, weighing the heavy words on his tongue. _On this, your last night. On this, our last night as the way we are._ In the end, he decides against them.

“There is no need.” Elidibus is blushing, but still leaning into Emet-Selch’s hand, his lips catching on the knuckles of his fingers.

Will the world know how beautiful he is, framed by red, how beautiful the column of his throat is when he swallows, when the words cannot quite leave his mouth? He wants it and he cannot ask for it.

“There is,” Azem insists from his other side, her voice delicately balancing between hard anger and loving gentleness. “We have wasted so much time.”

They have argued enough, behind doors where no one else can hear them. This decision, this half-formed relationship taut between the three of them, has hung ripe in the air but never materialized. You think you have so much time, and then it drops out from under you, relentless in its cruelty to simply end.

(It took him a hundred years before he even dared touch Azem and when he did she looked at him and said dryly _I was about to crawl into your skin if you didn't dare soon_.)

Elidibus looks up at her, tongue wetting his dry lips. “What will you have of me?”

“We want you. As much of you as we can have.” Azem touches his chin, her fingers trailing down his neck to rest at his clavicles.

“As much as you will let us have.”

Elidibus’ voice trembles. “I am… Yes. I am yours.”

Azem nudges him up to standing, placing the thorned flower crown on his head as she leans in to press her closed lips to his. Emet-Selch’s hands move in from behind, parting the robes he wears, his hands following the warm planes of his chest down until the clothing falls away, pooling on the floor. His hands intertwine with hers, over Elidibus’ chest.

He is so soft in their hands. His skin is translucent. He has always been open like this. Tender like this.

What will the world know of him? Will it know how his slender fingers are always chasing a melody, always swirling with notes unheard and achingly beautiful songs? How vulnerable he is when he looks up from a book and you can tell from the distant look in his eyes there he is not quite here with you, not yet. He is not a dreamer but he is shaped like one.

Emet-Selch could spend all night tracing the veins of Elidibus’ body and still not feel satisfied in having memorized him.

Elidibus hooks his hand behind Emet-Selch’s neck, eyes hazy with raw need as he brings their lips together. There is no question in his eyes, only a plea: _forgive me_. He tastes of the wine Azem drank earlier, of warm spices and soothing herbs, and beneath that, his own unique flavour. Salty tears and smoky tea. It seems they have all been wrestling with themselves today. How foolish, he thinks, deepening the kiss with such intensity that Elidibus moans and grinds up against him, how foolish they are when they could have been doing this all along.

They thought they had more time. All three of them. It is strange, now, to find that not enough has been said, not enough has been done.

Azem’s eyes meet Emet-Selch’s briefly as she sheds her robe, and this always leaves him breathless: to see her naked, to know that she trusts him enough to be revealed and vulnerable. She raises her chin, that defiant streak that flares up whenever she exposes herself, and Emet-Selch replicates her act as she makes Elidibus turn to her with the back of her hand.

“We fill you with our love,” she says, words laced with shaky tenderness, “so that you may always know how loved you are. We fill you with our love so you may always have us at your side, wherever you go.”

“How poetic,” Emet-Selch drawls, chin coming to rest on Elidibus’ shoulder. “She should have been a poet, don’t you think?”

She snaps her teeth in front of his face, but it is playful, as if she is finally sliding back into her usual self. It has been too long.

He comes to join her in front of Elidibus, though he has nothing soft to say, just a hunger for those lips, the curves of which he has traced in his daydreams for too long. Azem joins in on kissing him, taking turns with Emet-Selch to leave Elidibus breathless until he fumbles backwards to lean against the grand piano, his body trembling and a hard-on jutting out against their hips.

They both kneel before Elidibus, their mouths on his dick, their kiss enclosing it between their lips and tongues as they look up at him, supplicants wishing to offer themselves to him fully. He rests his hands on their heads, burning red blush creeping over his cheeks and his blue eyes heavy-lidded. Their tongues meet, wrapping around his member, drawing out soft sighs and a thick drop of precum.

She laps it up first, but her tongue finds his and shares the taste. He groans as her fingers tangle in his hair, his own cock rigid from the taste of them both. When they resume licking Elidibus’ member his breath grows ragged above them, and he bites into his own bicep, trying to stifle a noise.

How long has he dreamt of this? How long has he entertained fantasies of it, but pushed them away, buried them? Too long, Emet-Selch surmises, hearing the cry above him as Elidibus jerks sharply forward between their mouths.

His seed is warm and salty, coming in a quick spurt and painting Azem’s chin and chest. She licks up what she can reach with her tongue, but Emet-Selch pulls her up to her feet next to Elidibus, taking his time to lick her clean. Elidibus watches them, rapt, carefully leaning in to plant soft fleeting kisses on Azem’s shoulder.

It does not take long for him to grow bolder, his fascination with her that has been apparent from the first day he joined the Convocation finally allowed an outlet. Elidibus explores Azem’s body, thumbing each mark on her skin as if she is a map he must memorize before heading out into the unknown.

Emet-Selch takes a step back to watch, his hand on his own cock. They are beautiful to watch. He strokes himself slowly, taking his time, following the motions of Elidibus. “Taste her.” It is somewhere between a suggestion and an order, and Elidibus follows it eagerly, as if he has been given permission to finally sample her.

He licks a long stripe from her breast down over her belly, down to the top of her thighs. She squirms under his mouth, her tongue darting out and sucking in her lower lip.

“Taste all of her,” Emet-Selch says gently.

Watching Elidibus on his knees between her legs is intoxicating — watching her legs drape over his shoulders as she sits down fully on top of the piano, the anticipation as Elidibus tongues the edges of her wetness before his tongue parts her nether lips in one long lick ending at her clit. She whimpers, a noise that never fails to make Emet-Selch feel the clench of heat within himself.

“Yes, there, exactly _there_ …” Sensing the uncertainness of Elidibus, Azem is louder than usual, more encouraging. “More… Fingers… Tongue…” He gives, and gives, pressing his tongue into her alongside his fingers, curving them upwards when she commands it, holding still as she ruts against his hand, her fingers wrapped tight around his wrist. The slickness from her spreads, pooling on the polished wood, and still she wants more. “Tongue. Mouth. _Suck_.” The words stutter out of her, punctuated by bitten-back sobs of raw need.

He spreads her apart, her nub laid bare, and closes his lips around it. Just that little touch alone has her crying out, and she beckons to Emet-Selch, twisting to the side to be able to moan her pleasure into his mouth as he kisses her, their breaths hot and wet. When Elidibus has her too fraying to kiss him back, he nips at her lips, sliding his tongue into her open mouth.

Her thighs flex and tense, squeezing hard on Elidibus’ head as she comes, her moans turning into soft sobs in Emet-Selch’s mouth. It endears him so much to her, how she is a fountain of strength and endurance and hard edges but when she comes, she always cries a little, wide open and accepting what you have done to her.

Elidibus’ face comes away from her pussy wet and glistening, his eyes glazed over but triumphant. Emet-Selch knows the feeling well.

“Do you want to fuck her?” he asks, stroking Elidibus’ hair.

“Yes. If she will have me.”

“I think she is more than ready for you.” Emet-Selch pumps two fingers into her, a second gush of wetness coming out with them. “And I daresay, more than wanting…”

As Elidibus rises to stand, Emet-Selch keeps fingering her until he is coated with her slick, bringing his hand to Elidibus’ dick to prepare him. It is half-hard but within two strokes of his hand, he is ready.

“Spread wide, dear.” He stands behind Elidibus, pushing her knees further apart, and pressing into Elidibus’ back, one hand around his cock to guide him into her. It is big, and she will feel it. She will enjoy it.

He watches Azem over Elidibus’ shoulder, paying attention to each little twitch of her eyebrows, each wrinkle around her eyes when she squeezes them shut, barely able to breathe in even as he has only moved the head into her. His other hand comes around to flick at her clit, to make sure she relaxes enough to let Elidibus all the way in.

Time slows, the movements going forward agonizingly slow, and then he removes his hand and she surges forward, sheathing Elidibus inside of her in one quick move. The two of them moan, looking down at where they are joined in wonderment.

“Does she feel good around you?” Emet-Selch asks, voice dropping low and husky.

Elidibus nods, swallowing loudly. “Azem… I…”

“Just move, please, just fuck me,” she whines, getting what she wants when Emet-Selch moves Elidibus’ hips for him, frozen in awe as he is. Then he lets go, and Elidibus moves of his own, snapped free from the daze and falling into a rhythm, his arms wrapping around her, gathering her to himself.

Emet-Selch leans forward to kiss her, sloppy and greedy, moaning against her as her tongue moves into his mouth.

“Attend to him,” she says after moving away, planting a soft kiss upon his lips. “He needs you.”

Who is he to disobey?

His fingers splay at Elidibus’ lower back, conjuring a drizzle of oil to coat his fingers and drip down between the cheeks of his ass. His oiled fingers move lower, pressing against the puckered entrance, and he slides one in with no resistance. He pistons his finger in and out, then curves it downward, delighting in the thick moans that draws from Elidibus.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Emet-Selch purrs in Elidibus’ ear. “Though she is far, far better at this than I am.”

“Will you—“ Elidibus moans between his thrusts, caught between her hot heat and Emet-Selch’s probing finger.

“Yes, later,” she promises.

“Is he satisfying to you, my love? Is he everything you want?”

“Shut up and please him already,” she groans.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he says, withdrawing his finger and adding a second, scissoring Elidibus open. “Be still.”

He brushes Elidibus’ long hair forward over his shoulder so he can kiss his neck, thrusting the fingers in and out until there is enough give to add a third.

Holding the fingers still, he presses kiss after kiss to Elidibus’ exposed neck. “Do you want me to do this to you?”

“Yes!” Elidibus’ voice trembles, and he tries to crane his head back to meet Emet-Selch’s lips. “Yes… I want you. Need you. I always have.”

So open. So needy. So heartbreakingly beautiful. His words warm Emet-Selch to his core.

“Who am I to deny you, when you beg me so sweetly?”

His lips meet Elidibus’ briefly, as he lazily pumps his cock in his hand, spreading the oil and drawing out the last bit of hardness. Pushing against the entrance the cockhead pops inside, and he bites down on Elidibus’ shoulder. The tightness, the hot clench and slickness from the oil, it is so much. The desire, densely coiled in his gut, folds outwards, spreading like a wildfire throughout his body.

“Kiss her,” he commands as he slides inside slowly.

Elidibus is far too gone in the pleasure to follow through, so Azem wraps her arms around Elidibus’ neck and pulls him close to her, kissing him hungrily. Her touch seems to ground him, and he relaxes enough so that Emet-Selch can bottom out fully.

The arrangement of their bodies must be strange to see, he muses — Azem sitting on the piano, legs spread wide to accommodate Elidibus between her thighs, and Emet-Selch pressing Elidibus further into her, guiding him, holding on to his neck and hips as he rolls his hips lazily.

When he thrusts, he hears both of them moan, a different kind of music but far more headier. Elidibus stills between them, strung tight between two sensations, wrapped in their embrace.

Emet-Selch wants to be smug, wants to say something that will make her reach across the man between them and tug at his hair, bite his lips, but the words falter on his tongue when he sees just how blissful she is in the moment. Every ilm of stress has washed out of her features, and she is just… There. _Here_ , with _them_. Not sharpening another argument in her head, not looking into the distance as if another place is calling to her.

She is theirs, all theirs, at least for tonight.

And they are all three each other’s tonight. A mutual offering at the end of it all.

The orgasm ripples through them like a chain reaction, their aether so finely attuned to each other that when Azem comes, her nerves light up Elidibus and Emet-Selch, who push each other over the edge. Emet-Selch slips outside right as he comes, spattering his come all over Elidibus’ back and ass, and then slumps forward. Their skin sticks together, sweat and seed, hair plastered to each other.

How they make it to the bathroom is anyone’s guess, whoever teleported them there managed to land them in a tangle of limbs on the cool tiles of the shower floor. Water cools their skin as they pick themselves apart, but their hands wander so fast, their mouths so hungry.

It will be a long night, Emet-Selch thinks to himself as Elidibus takes his cock into his mouth all the way to the root. And he will still wish it was longer.

When they finish in the shower, Azem is already perched on the bed, combing through her hair with her fingers and unspooling the tangles their hands have wrought in it.

Elidibus reclines on his back on the sheets mussed from insomniac nights, his face open with awe and adoration, the crown falling from his head. She brushes his long, silky hair away from his forehead, gathering it into a handful.

“You are so beautiful,” she says, stroking his cheek. “I am blessed to be here with you. I am blessed to know you.”

“And I you,” he says back to her, a sparkle in his eyes that Emet-Selch has never seen before. “Let me taste you again.”

She holds his hair gently as she settles herself to straddle his face, her back arching. His hands move to cup her ass, fingers splaying and digging as they spread it apart.

Not one to be left out, Emet-Selch puts his hands on Elidibus’ thighs, lowering himself to kneel between the other man’s legs, gazing upon the hard cock resting on his lower belly.

He strokes his thumb against the backside of it, one long swipe, ending at the tip and smearing the droplets of precum nestled there. He licks his thumb clean. Another taste he only gets to savour one night — so he will do the most of it.

He presses the lightest of kisses against the tip of Elidibus’ rigid member, amused at the responding twitch.

“Don’t tease too cruelly,” Azem sighs, looking back over her shoulder.

“When have I ever done that?” Emet-Selch says, quirking an eyebrow in mock offense at her accusation.

“Always.” The word turns into a moan, Elidibus no doubt wanting her focus back.

He closes his lips around the cock in front of him and takes it deep, all the way to the back of his throat. He laughs when he feels Elidibus’ legs tense up underneath his hands, smug about what he can make him feel. He will show Elidibus how to unravel tonight.

His nose buried in the pale curls, he hollows his cheeks and pulls upwards slowly, stretching the seconds out. His tongue covers his bottom teeth, but there is a slight scrape, a tiny sting of pain that has Elidibus melting into him.

The pang of regret hits him square in the chest — that he did not learn this earlier, that he held back too long, that he could have had this all before the world began collapsing — but he tries to push it down, even as the color of the room shifts to a dark azure hue before he can will it away.

It gets harder and harder to show restraint when they are so tangled up together, so close and so open.

It was never meant to be a complicated night.

Elidibus wrenches a broken sob from Azem, and she tumbles off him, panting and shuddering as her whole body shakes from the sudden orgasm. She watches Emet-Selch through her eyelashes, blush high on her cheeks.

“You look so beautiful when you are sucking dick,” she says, crawling over and pushing his head down hard. “And even prettier choking on it.”

These little glints of her harshness, knife edges of cruelty slipping out — but it is not mean-spirited. It is just her knowing. Knowing that being too tender, too gentle right now, it would do Emet-Selch in worse.

In a way, she keeps him grounded. It is what he has always loved about her.

And, it would seem, is something Elidibus enjoys as well.

The hot, salty ejaculate hits the back of his throat and he swallows as much of it as he can down, but still a bit drools out. He shoves her hand away and gasps for air, wiping at his mouth to gather up the spilled seed.

They rearrange themselves on the bed, fingers lazily tracing each other, kisses moving from lips to lips, drawing soft sighs from the other.

Azem rests between them, her head tucked against Elidibus, tears glittering on her eyelashes.

She fought the Convocation tooth and nail, and lost. It is in these quiet moments when the regrets well up the hardest in her. She struggles with staying still, with watching things fall apart, and now she is forced into doing just that. Even sandwiched between them, kept warm and safe, she cannot keep her thoughts in order. Dark shadows dance across the ceiling, chased by scarlet flecks of light.

And Emet-Selch has long run out of words that truly comfort her.

Elidibus kisses at her tears, hesitant at first, but when she does not push him away he continues. Each time one spills forth he catches it with his mouth or tongue tip.

“I don’t want to cry,” she says, wiping at her face. “I just wanted you to have a smile on your lips tonight. I just wanted you to know how we felt.”

“I do,” Elidibus assures her. “I have always known.”

“And yet none of us acted on it!” She laughs in a hiccup, pressing her hands against her face.

“We are nothing if not fools in these matters,” Emet-Selch says, gently peeling her hands away, kissing her fingertips.

The soft trickle of tears does not let up, and Emet-Selch joins Elidibus in kissing them away, but he has never been able to keep his hands to himself when she rests naked in front of him.

His hand strays down, circling her nipples, and he arches an eyebrow in amusement when he feels Elidibus shifting to do the same.

It seems their minds are working in tandem on this matter, their fingers weaving a path downwards together, moving her legs apart.

They slide their fingers in, one each at first, their knuckles brushing against each other as they press as deep as they can go. She is sopping wet, the movements of their hands making obscene squelching sounds. When he catches Elidibus’ eye, he sees his own needs mirrored in there, his own wants. To fuck into her so hard that she knows not where one of them ends and the other begins.

Emet-Selch slides out fully, adding a second finger, and Azem writhes between them, her lips moving from Elidibus to Emet-Selch. They trail kisses along her neck, her jaw, feeling her pulse quicken as their fingers stretch her little by little.

When Elidibus swipes his thumb over her clit, she gushes over their hands, sweet and sticky and wet, so damnably wet, and her walls clamp down on their fingers before relaxing again, and Elidibus slides two in alongside Emet-Selch’s two. The groan that spills from Azem’s lips is guttural, deep and suffused with a rawness he has never wrought from her alone before.

“Both,” she says, flexing her hips to meet their hands. “I need you both, now, inside me, fucking me…”

Emet-Selch is the first to sit up on his knees, pulling her backwards onto his lap, spreading her legs wide apart. “She is all yours for the taking,” he says, offering her wet cunt to Elidibus, the slick they have teased out of her dripping onto his legs.

Elidibus spreads her lower lips wide, watching her in reverence. Emet-Selch sees what he sees through his eyes, the shift of perspectives such a subtle art: the gaping empty begging to be filled and fucked raw, the drops sliding out. The sheer carnal allure of wanting them so badly.

Taking his cock in hand, Elidibus guides it into her and slides in smoothly, her head falling back on Emet-Selch’s shoulder. Elidibus’ hands join him to hold her up, and Emet-Selch positions the head of his prick by her entrance, the heat of her and Elidibus burning to be near. He presses, waits, pushes a little more, but there is no give.

He strokes her forehead, gently shushing her as he pauses. “Remember to breathe,” he says, and then: “is it too much?”

“Yes,” she says, “but I want it. Just…” She yelps when he reaches around to her front and captures her bead between two fingers, rolling it gently. The stimulation relaxes her and he slides inside her cunt, bit by bit, and when he is fully hilted all three of them groan.

He has never known warmth like this, never known tightness like this. Just them, holding her still in their arms, and he thinks he might come just from this. When Elidibus stirs he hisses. “Please,” he begs, “stay still, or…”

Having uttered the words, she cannot help but play dirty, of course. She clenches around them and he sinks his teeth into her shoulder, stifling a cry. Her skin breaks, the taste of blood on his tongue, and then Elidibus pries him off of her and into his mouth so he can share in the taste.

As they kiss over her shoulder, Elidibus begins to thrust, very slowly, pulling himself out a little before moving back in, his rhythm so slow and tender. It must be driving Azem insane, Azem who is all teeth and nails and take me so hard I’m ruined in her best moments, but she is also impaled on two cocks and can barely move pinned between their bodies.

They take turns lapping at the wound Emet-Selch inflicted, while the other kisses her. They rock her back and forth between them, their knees sliding against each other. She has one arm around Emet-Selch’s neck and another on Elidibus’ chest, playing with his nipples.

He wishes he could devour them for himself, take them and tuck them into a void space within him. He wishes he could keep this moment forever, make a home in it, even as the world cracks apart around them. The heady potential of what they are about to do thick in the air, the night ripe for them.

The oxygen in the room thins for a second, the scent of stones after rain filling his nostrils, the particular perfume of her aether shifting into action. Then he feels a slick, lubed-up head pressing against his backside, and he buries his nose in her ear. “What are you up to,” he growls.

“Relax,” she coos, and it is slowly pressing into him, hot and no thicker than a finger — at first. As it slides further into him it begins to swell, pressuring against his inner walls, against the sweet spot inside of him. It curls, and he yanks at her hair, but she just laughs, wild and carefree, the world falling off her shoulders for this transcendent moment.

His eyes meet Elidibus’, whose lips are parted, his hand moving to Emet-Selch’s shoulder, fingers digging in so hard his knuckles turn white. “Is it always like this?” He swallows thickly.

“Worse.”

“I… Oh…”

He bites at her neck. “Don’t strain yourself.”

“I don’t care,” she replies, breathless.

She knows them too well. She controls it, moving within them as they move within her. When she pulls out they thrust into her, and she rewards them in turn. Just when he thinks it cannot possibly be any thicker, she surprises him, and he drags his nails along her hips, scoring up red lines of blood.

They are both inside of her, and she is inside of them — the boundaries of them slowly melting away, their magick interlocking and changing each other. Their souls are intertwining. The colors of their souls are bleeding into each other, mingling, braiding them together. All the things they could have done, had they just —

Parts of them will go to their deaths with Elidibus tomorrow, as well. _Take these pieces of our hearts, and carry them with you. Take this loving, and make it useful._

Emet-Selch is the first to surrender, his thrusts losing any harmonic rhythm as the edge draws closer. He scratches at her breasts, teeth moving from shoulder to neck to ear, trying to find a way to inflict something, anything to her. He drives as deep as he can, and she does the same to him.

They both sing out her name, her true name, hidden underneath the title she wears like a shield. She laughs when he comes, laughs when Elidibus comes, all her anxieties and fears sliding off her as they melt against her, wrung out and loved in her embrace.

The tendril inside him pulls out, and she leaves him gaping empty.

He falls back on the bed, and she rests her head in his lap, gazing up at him.

“I love you,” she says, touching his cheek. “I love you,” she says, touching Elidibus as he rests his head on her belly.

They are dripping with each other, from each other. Here they are. Joined together. If only eternity would cast its spell on them. Freeze them in this imperfect moment, this dying gasp of desires finally sated and hearts opened and sweat mingling.

Elidibus spreads Azem’s legs and pushes his tongue into her, sucking her clean until she is whimpering, her toes curling into the sheets. Emet-Selch strokes her cheek, watching Elidibus bob his head as he sucks her clit, his tongue folding around it like he needs to wring her out completely.

He knows the feeling. He has tried many times, tried to get her to be a broken and scattered mess in his hands, tried to impress his value on her, _this is what I can do for you so please keep me forever and ever._

It is easy to fall for her like this.

He puts his hand on the back of Elidibus’ head, pushing him down on her hard.

She flicks her eyes up to meet Emet-Selch’s, and even if it is just this moment, even if this is the very last moment — she is _happy_. He could die here, seeing them both like this, happy with him, with each other.

Her final orgasm is so soft, a sigh exhaled, but her thighs are quivering, covered in a fine sheen of sweat that glistens in the low ambient light. Emet-Selch gives Elidibus a light tug, dragging him up for a kiss, to savor her taste from his lips.

Azem is a tender mess in his lap, her nipples swollen from all their attention, her skin lined with bite marks. Still she bucks up when Elidibus sucks one of her nipples into his mouth. She grips his chin, tilting his face up to look at her.

“Remember us,” she whispers, her fingers dedicating the planes of Elidibus’ face to memory. “We will keep you remembered.”

Emet-Selch watches the two of them. Azem’s heart has always been overflowing with love and care, always drawing new people into her orbit. Her charm knows no bounds, when she wants to.

But he already knows what tomorrow brings. The resolve has settled into her like a rock falling to the bottom of the sea.

“Stay,” Emet-Selch whispers, not sure which of them he is asking.

“You know what I will say,” Elidibus and Azem say, their voices one, their vowels intertwining like their hands are.

“I know.”

Shifting down onto the bed, they become a tangled mess again, hands sleepily touching and mapping, dedicating something fragile and tender to memory. A moment soon to be lost to the flow of time and fate. In the darkness, they whisper ephemeral confessions of love, all three of their lips grazing as their inexact kisses grow more frenzied, as the taste of salt fills their mouths.

* * *

Azem is not there the next morning, but the flower crown rests on her spot in the bed, petals crushed from their coupling.

Emet-Selch and Elidibus dress in silence, Emet-Selch placing the mask on Elidibus’ face.

“It is a freedom, I think,” Elidibus says, wringing his hands while smiling. “To be allowed to do something as heroic as this and feel no fear.”

If Azem was here, she would argue. She would scream, or slap Elidibus, plead with him to see reason. She would beg to take his place.

But she is not.

The prayers have grown so loud in Amaurot that not even the distant fires can be heard. _We name Him Zodiark, and we name Him our Salvation._

A god is a savior. And a god requires sacrifice. 

This is how you create a god: Emet-Selch is the one who holds the knife, the tip of the blade pressing into the soft skin he kissed just hours ago.

“Go and be our salvation,” Emet-Selch says, his bloodied fingers touching those lips he only knew for one night. In the newly carved hollow of Elidibus’ chest, darkness is born.

His hands are full of blood and his heart is emptier than Elidibus'. But there will be no god to fill him. There will be no love to fill him now. Their god is born. Rejoice, for your love is sacrificed.

A collective exhalation fills the air. _The Convocation has saved us. We are redeemed in the eyes of our god. We are seen in His grace._

The clouds are parting, but the smoke still blots out the stars. When the rains come to quench the fires, he barely feels the drops on his skin.

The end of his world leaves him hollowed out. He will not be the same, even if the world will be.

He will have to make an amendment to his definition of sacrifice, he thinks. To sacrifice is to feel a sorrow so deep it cannot be expressed. There are no words. Only abysses.

**Author's Note:**

> Idk! I just had a lot of feelings about all three of them following 5.3. It has ruined my life, thanks Squenix. 
> 
> My twitter is [@celestial_txt](https://twitter.com/celestial_txt) & [my carrd](https://celestial-txt.carrd.co/) is here.


End file.
